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Senate votes to increase minimum wage to $9.20

In a turn of events Thursday, the GOP-led Michigan Senate approved a minimum wage increase with support from Democrats, who gave up their objections to the bill because its intent was to stop a November ballot measure that could have meant a larger increase to low-wage workers.

The move came just a week after Senate Majority Leader Randy Richardville, R-Monroe, introduced Senate Bill 934. The bill passed 24-14 and heads to the House for consideration.

Changes to the bill made prior to the vote today would raise the state’s $7.40 hourly minimum wage to $9.20 by 2017. The original version of Richardville’s bill would have raised it to $8.15 an hour. The new version also increases the state’s tipped minimum wage from $2.65 an hour to $3.50 by 2017. The original version of the bill would have increased that wage to $2.93 an hour.

Richardville’s bill repeals the state’s current minimum wage law, for which the group Raise Michigan has been collecting signatures for months to amend so voters could decide in November whether to raise the regular and tipped minimum wages to $10.10 an hour by 2017.

If Richardville’s bill becomes law first, the ballot measure would be rendered moot because it would be seeking to amend a law that no longer exists. In order to first become law, the House would have to approve it, give it immediate effect and then send it back to the Senate for immediate effect. Without a vote for immediate effect in both chambers, the bill, if signed by Gov. Rick Snyder, would not become law until next year. It takes 26 votes in the Senate to give a bill immediate effect; the bill passed today with 24.

In the House, immediate effect is given to almost every bill, regardless of whether there is a sufficient amount of votes to grant it. Democrats recently sued House Republicans over the issue, but the state Supreme Court refused to take up the case.

On Tuesday, Danielle Atkinson of Raise Michigan said members were determined to move forward with their effort because of all the work they had done.

Raise Michigan says it has collected more than the 258,000 signatures needed for a measure to appear on the November ballot to amend current law. The coalition is going to continue with the petition drive and plans to turn in the signatures it has gathered by the May 28 deadline, Atkinson said.

She said it was disappointing to see the support the bill received Thursday, saying it does not go far enough and fails to lift a family of three out of poverty.

As soon as the Senate session ended Thursday, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mark Schauer made a surprise appearance on the Senate floor to say he supported passage of Richardville’s bill.

A week ago, Schauer called the bill “an election year gimmick,” and urged Snyder to support a real minimum wage increase. What makes this version of the bill better, Schauer said, is that the minimum wage is indexed to inflation, so it doesn’t lose its purchasing power.

Members of Raise Michigan do not see it that way and say this bill is an attempt to cheat workers out of a decent wage.

“It’s disappointing to see the Republican-controlled Legislature hell-bent on derailing our grassroots effort to help lift Michigan families out of poverty. The bill they passed today just doesn’t go far enough to help struggling Michiganders,” Dessa Cosma-King of Raise Michigan said in a statement. “With this bill, taxpayers will still be subsidizing corporations that refuse to pay their employees a decent wage and thousands of women will continue to raise children in poverty.”

Sen. Bert Johnson, D-Highland Park, who just two days ago stood at a news conference with those who had spent countless hours gathering signatures for the ballot measure and decried Richardville’s bill, voted for it Thursday. He said he did so because they were able to secure several changes to the original version, including an increase in the wage and indexing it to inflation.

Sen. Patrick Colbeck, R-Canton Township, said he voted against it because increasing the minimum wage hurts job growth.

“I’m disappointed we passed this bill,” he said. “This is bad news for the state of Michigan.”